April Showers
by Twinings
Summary: Raining violets?  No.  It was raining rain.  CATverse 3.6
1. When April showers may come your way

Disclaimer: We can pretend I own these characters if you really, really want to. Go ahead and send me money. Just don't tell DC. And if anybody asks, I have no idea what you're talking about.

This story is dedicated to TheNoblePorpoise, because she refused to write it.

And to Techie, whose spiral into oldness has officially begun.

And to me. Hey, I don't want to be left out.

Visit www. freewebs catverse. html to see where this fits in the timeline. And for those of you who don't like to go to any effort, it comes after "The Paean of the Bells."

Cover image by Trumpeteer34.

* * *

April Showers

If you wanted sunshine, you moved to Metropolis. It was just that simple. Gotham City was not a place kissed by the sun. About the best they could hope for was that the temperature might get somewhere above freezing, and that the wind wouldn't be quite determined enough to find _every_ hole in a worn out suit of clothes.

Maybe in some parts of the world, April showers brought May flowers, but in Gotham, even this early in the month, no one could begin to hope that the next month would be anything but more of the same.

This kind of dreary extended-winter weather was almost enough to make Jonathan Crane think fondly of his recent week spent relaxing on a beach in Florida.

Almost.

That week had ended with him making a decision that he strongly suspected had been the worst mistake of his life. Now, a little more than two weeks later, he found himself the reluctant leader of a gang of female henchmen, three incomprehensibly devoted young women who were quite possibly among the least sane people he had ever met. (And that was really saying something.)

They had actually managed to prove themselves somewhat useful, against all his expectations. They weren't as physically imposing as the muscle he had hired in the past, but he was the last person who could fault them for that. And what they lacked in brute strength, they more than made up for in energy and determination. And they had all turned out to be far more intelligent than he could have hoped, in spite of a noticeable lack of common sense.

That intelligence, coupled with a rather eclectic set of skills, had gotten them past the security systems and in and out of the labs without incident.

And that lack of common sense was currently pitting the three of them against Batman while Crane made his escape with his new store of chemicals wrapped securely in his jacket.

It was too bad for them that they were going to end the night with a one-way trip to Arkham, but it was about time he was rid of them. He would have to think about moving, though. No matter how loyal they claimed to be, he had no doubt that they would crack when questioned by the CGPD—unless they were questioned by the Batman, in which case he would have to do considerably more to cover his tracks than simply finding a new lair.

But the point was that for the first time in a good long while, he was getting away.

He ducked into an alley to remove his mask. There were times when it was necessary for him to be the Scarecrow, striking fear in the hearts of all who saw him, and then there were times when it was better to be plain Jonathan Crane, ordinary man walking home alone in the middle of the night in a bad part of town.

All right, so it might have been nice to fall somewhere in between the two extremes. Without the mask, he looked like a prime candidate for an easy mugging. But he could handle that kind of trouble. The kind of attention that the mask could attract was considerably more of a bother.

He should have known better than to use the alley. Every time he ducked into an alley, something terrible happened.

This time, his only great misfortune was something that he couldn't in all fairness blame entirely on the location—it started to rain. Worse things had happened to him in alleyways (and outside them, now that he thought about it) but it was an annoyance. A few degrees colder, and this drizzle could have been a light snowfall. A few degrees warmer, and it might have been almost pleasant.

As it was, the rain was damned uncomfortable, forcing him to hunch over his little bundle, using his body to shield the delicate chemicals from the rain that was already soaking through his clothes.

He left the alley, trudging down a sidewalk that had seen better days and cheerfully cursing the skies for raining on his parade. He had done well tonight, and the weather should have cooperated with his rare good mood.

Instead, it started coming down harder. At this rate, he would be lucky to keep his supplies dry. He clutched the bundle tighter against his chest and sternly told himself to stop shivering. (He would be fine if he put the jacket back on, but given a choice between himself and his work, he was not about to protect himself. A little rain wasn't going to kill him, and a change of clothes and maybe a hot cup of tea would set everything to rights.)

He splashed through a puddle that was deeper than it looked, and cringed when the icy water found its way into his boots. If this wasn't such a good night, he would say it was shaping up to be downright miserable.

But it was a good night. He had all the supplies he would need to run his experiments for another month at least, he was rid of his irritating minions, the Batman was nowhere to be seen…

And if his teeth didn't stop chattering soon, he was probably going to break his molars. He clenched his jaw and broke into a stumbling run.

One of these days, he was really going to have to get a car…

He slowed to a walk when the effort of breathing began to make his lungs burn, far sooner than he would have liked. The rain was coming down so hard, he wouldn't have been able to see the lair if it were three feet in front of his face, but he knew it _must_ be near.

Suddenly, he couldn't think about anything but dry socks.

The wind picked up just as he reached his own front door, sending a sheet of solid water straight _up_ into his face. That felt like it was a little less than fair.

But he was home now, and safe, at least for the next few minutes. He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it…maybe just a few seconds to catch his breath…

Why were the lights on?

"What kept you, Squishy?" someone called.

_Oh, no. They're still here._

Then the three young women appeared from nowhere, or so he would have guessed, to cluster around him, looking horrified by his appearance and the puddle he was leaving on the floor.

"Oh, Squishykins, you're soaked!"

Al took the bundle out of his hands and disappeared. Techie and the Captain grabbed him by the arms and nearly lifted him off the floor in their haste to drag him further inside the lair.

"Come on, Squishums," said Techie. "You must be freezing. If you don't learn to take better care of yourself, we're never going to be able to leave you alone."

"Let go of me," he said. She did, only to drop to one knee to fumble with his shoelaces. The Captain started to take off his shirt. He pushed her away, and in return got his hand slapped as if he were a naughty child.

"If you don't get out of those wet clothes, Squishykins, I'm not going to be held responsible for what happens."

He tried to snap back at her, but his body chose that moment to start shivering violently. Whatever he wanted to say came out sounding like gibberish.

She threw her arms around him, an act that probably would have signed her death warrant if not for the fact that her body heat instantly began to penetrate his chill, making him feel that much closer to "alive."

"Stop cuddling and strip the man," Al said from somewhere behind him. The Captain pulled away, taking his shirt with a minimum of struggle. A heavy blanket dropped down over his shoulders, accompanied by a nuzzle from Al.

"Could you cooperate just a little?" Techie demanded as she pulled off first one boot, then the other. She made a disappointed sound at the state of his socks, and removed those as well. Meanwhile, Al moved around in front of him to seize his pants.

"S—s—" What was this? He couldn't even get out the single word "stop."

"Gently, Al," said the Captain.

"What? I want to pants him."

"Gently," the Captain repeated. She wrapped the blanket more securely around him.

"Do you really think I'm going to hurt the Squishykins?" She pulled his pants off, in spite of his own misgivings, and tossed them to the floor. They all crowded around him, hampering his movement too much for him to even think about attempting escape, and ushered him over to the couch, where they forced him to sit and covered him with more blankets until he could hardly move. The Captain pressed a steaming cup of tea into his hands, and gave him a satisfied smile when he took a sip. Then Al started toweling his hair far more vigorously than he would have deemed necessary.

"Stop that."

"But, you're wet!"

"Stop," he repeated. She fell back. The other two sat down on either side of him.

"Warming up now, Professor Crane?" the Captain asked sweetly. He glared at her.

"How did you get back here so fast? What happened to Batman?" He jumped, startled, as Techie snuggled up against him. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he couldn't keep an eye on all three of them when they surrounded him like this.

"Batman? Kid stuff," Al said dismissively. She hugged him from behind. He shivered slightly, and the Captain pressed herself up against the last available real estate.

"Will you get off me?" he snapped, his voice slightly muffled by the puff of hair in front of his mouth.

"You're cold!"

"I have _work_ to do."

"Not tonight, you don't. The only place you're going is to bed. Anything else can wait until morning."

He felt a flash of sullen anger. How _dared_ they try to tell him what to do?

"I want to get those chemicals stored _properly_."

"I'll take care of it," Al insisted. He shrugged his way out of their collective grasp.

"Are you my minions, or aren't you?" They all giggled—an affirmative answer. "Then start acting like it! If you don't learn to take orders, you'll all be out of a job."

"You don't pay us for this," Techie reminded him.

"By 'job,' I meant breathing." He met her dark eyes, and was disappointed by her utter lack of fear. In fact, she looked delighted.

"Get some rest," she said gently. "After all, if you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."

The other two squealed with joy at some private joke, and he wondered yet again what he was doing with these three by his side. But he allowed them to usher him into his bedroom, still inside his cocoon of blankets, before he slammed the door in their faces.

xXx

He hadn't expected to sleep so long or so deeply. He was normally such a light sleeper, prone to nightmares and easily startled awake by the slightest noise. But, judging by the sunlight shining directly in his eyes, he had slept soundly until something like noon.

Maybe he had needed the rest, he thought as he threw off the covers and sat up. Not that he was admitting that they had been right. Far from it. Although his throat did feel a little sore.

Great. If he had caught a cold, they were never going to let him live it down.

But, when he stood up, he realized that he had _much_ bigger problems. The floor tilted under his feet, and he went down.


	2. They bring the flowers that bloom in May

Soup. It was the solution to so many of life's little problems.

The Captain, Al, and Techie had all woken up sniffling and feeling generally unpleasant—and sore; their fight with Batman hadn't gone quite as well as they had implied.

The Captain had declared it soup day.

"I wonder how squish face is feeling," Al said. The Captain grinned.

"Maybe he's sick! We can force feed him soup!"

Techie checked her watch.

"It's almost one o'clock. He should have come out by now…Maybe he really is sick!"

"We'd better go check on him," the Captain said cheerfully.

"But we promised we'd stay out of his side of the lair."

"But what if he's too weak to crawl out of bed or call for help?" she teased. "How would you feel if he _died_ in there, all alone, because we didn't care enough to go in there and check on him?"

"I bet he wears the cutest jammies," Techie added thoughtfully. The Captain grinned, knowing her fight was won—not that there had been much effort on her part.

"He's probably feeling pretty blah, if not really sick. Let's at least bring him some tea."

"He's going to chase us out," Al warned.

"Yeah, so?"

"So you'd think you would have learned your lesson."

The Captain laughed at the idea of any of them learning their lesson when it came to the Squishmeister. And if her laugh sounded a little forced, no one commented.

Al and the Captain kept up the argument while Techie made the tea. In fact, they were still arguing when the Captain knocked on his door.

There was no response from inside the room.

"See? He's dead." The Captain knocked harder.

This time, they got a very faint groan: "Go away."

The girls exchanged worried glances. Then Al bowed to peer pressue and opened the door.

"Oh, Squishykins!"

Their poor Squishy was lying on the floor, curled around a garbage can, clutching the rim and retching into it. They fell to their knees in a circle around him.

"Go—go away."

"No!"

"Leave me alone."

Al put her hand on his forehead. He flinched away, which didn't seem to be the ideal move. After turning ghastly pale, he turned his attention back to the garbage can. Without missing a beat, Al brushed his hair back from his face, gently but firmly holding him steady until he was done.

"You need help, and don't you dare argue with me." He didn't move. "Come on, Squishy. Let's get you back in bed."

"Don' wanna move," he mumbled. "Room's spinning."

"Well, I'm not surprised! You're running one hell of a fever. What were you thinking, trying to get up when you're feeling this sick?"

"Not," he whispered.

"What?"

"Not sick."

"Yeah, I've heard that one before." She glared briefly at the Captain. "Come on, don't you want to get back in bed?"

"No…"

"But if you get back in bed, the room will stop spinning," she promised. He looked up at her with all the pathetic helplessness of a one-legged puppy.

"Really?"

"Really."

He relented, and the three of them together lifted him up and placed him ever so gently back in the bed. Normally, this would have been the time for at least a halfhearted tirade on his part, but he just stared off into space while Al fussed over him, covering him with the sheet and feeling his forehead again.

"How did she do that?" Techie whispered to the Captain.

"Repressed mommy urges."

"I heard that," Al snapped without looking up. "Go find me a thermometer. And whatever other crap you can find. We'll play doctor the right way later; for now, I just want to make sure he's comfortable. And leave the tea."

None of them picked up on the double entendre. If Jonathan had been lucid, that alone would have alerted him to the seriousness of the situation.

Unfortunately, he was far from lucid, and it was only going to get worse before it got better.


	3. So when it's raining

"He looks like he has a pretty nasty case of pneumonia," Al told her friends once Jonathan finally slipped into a light doze. Why it mattered that he should be asleep while they talked, she didn't know. Maybe she just wanted to avoid putting any more stress on the poor thing. He was going to have a rough enough time of it already.

"How did you come by that diagnosis, doctor?"

Al sighed in mild exasperation.

"Look, when you're an EMT's kid and you major in biology, you tend to learn a little something about the human immune system. Besides, he looks exactly like I felt when I had pneumonia. Couldn't turn my head without throwing up, couldn't take a deep breath, barely knew my name most of the time. The only part of those two weeks I can actually remember is when I convinced my mom not to make me skip the Garth Brooks concert. And I only had a _touch_ of it."

"Are you saying we should take him to a hospital?" the Captain asked. Al cast a worried glance at the Scarecrow. If they took him to a hospital, there was no way to disguise his identity, and he would be sure to end up in Arkham. Between the three of them, they might be able to take care of him. Then again, they might not. Their medical skills tended more towards first aid than actual _medicine_, and Al wasn't nearly arrogant enough to think that they would be as good as the real thing.

People _died_ from pneumonia. It would be far easier to break him out of Arkham than to go through the whole lengthy ritual of raising the dead.

But would they take care of him at Arkham? When he got well enough to fight back, would a nurse be willing to sit on his chest to pour soup down his throat? Would anyone bother to make him any more comfortable than the absolute minimum required to keep him alive?

"I feel like we shouldn't let him out of our sight. Maybe…maybe we could keep him here for a couple of days, and then if he doesn't get any better, we can call for reinforcements."

"Okay. But the second he takes a turn for the worse…"

"We get him some real help. For now, tea, soup, and hugs. And maybe some penicillin."

"Do we have any?"

"There might be some in the lab. If not, I'll go out and get some."

They all looked back at Jonathan, thinking thoughts that could have led to their immediate doom if they had voiced them when he was awake to hear. He looked so young sleeping there without that perpetually suspicious look that was as much a part of him as the glasses and toxin. He really wasn't all that much older than they were, even if, awake, he seemed like he'd been forty since birth.

He was either going to love them or hate them when he woke up.

And, God, Al hoped he would wake up soon.


	4. Have no regrets

Every once in a while, something penetrated the fog of fever dreams. Mostly voices. Opening his eyes was a risky proposition, what with the way the images kept swimming around. If he was about to drown, he didn't want to know it for sure.

The voices droned appealingly, not requiring any mental effort on his part. Occasionally, they stopped, and something else would happen to him. Very rarely, he actually noticed and cared.

Sometimes he found his voice and managed to stutter out commands. Requests. Needs. Whatever he tried to say was inevitably answered with something being poured down his throat. Soup, tea, cough syrup—mostly, he couldn't tell the difference.

When he was so cold his bones ached, there was always someone to cover him with a blanket. When his eyes were dry and burning, there were cool, damp cloths spread across his forehead, bringing relief, if only briefly. When he couldn't breathe because his chest ached and he felt the bed spinning underneath him, well, there was no relief for that. But there was some strange-smelling goop that he had no way of recognizing as Vicks Vap-O-Rub, because no one had ever spread that over his chest before-which seemed to make his lungs expand; and something else he didn't recognize—a hand on his, providing an anchor to the solid world.

During a brief period of lucidity, he actually bothered to open his eyes and discovered, to his immense relief, that everything looked relatively stable. He tried not to move. With any luck, he wouldn't set it off again. Maybe just moving his eyes wouldn't be too bad, though. His view of the ceiling wasn't exactly awe-inspiring.

Very carefully, he let his eyes roll to the side and caught his first view of…Techie? Sitting up by his bedside? Reading Poe aloud?

This had to be another dream. Of course. If he were awake, he wouldn't be allowing her to hold his hand, idly running her thumb back and forth over his knuckles as she read.

And while he couldn't be completely sure in his current state, he didn't think the wording of the story was exactly right—although why he should dream that she was misquoting "A Cask of Amontillado" he couldn't have said.

Well, as long as he was dreaming, couldn't the subject matter be a little more cheerful? He didn't feel strong enough to deal with a nightmare.

"For the love of God, Montressor!" Techie read. That part, at least, he knew was right.

"Yes," he said, "for the love of God."

His voice came out as barely a whisper, but it was enough to startle Techie into dropping the book and letting go of his hand.

"Jonathan! You're awake!"

That incredibly obvious statement didn't seem to require a response, which was a damn good thing. He was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he seemed to have swallowed a lit cigarette sometime in the recent past.

"Do you need anything?"

"Water?" he whispered. He would have gotten up and gotten it himself, but his body didn't seem to be obeying his commands. Techie smiled incomprehensibly and reached for the pitcher and glass on the bedside table.

Bedside table? Since when did he have a bedside table? The fundamental laws of the universe were being unwritten!

Or else they were going and moving things while he was in no condition to do anything about it, which was just as bad.

She helped him sit up, and piled a mountain of pillows behind him to keep him in that position. He glared at her.

"Why?"

"Why what? Why are we taking care of you? Honestly, Squishums, did you think we wouldn't?" She stuck the business end of the straw in his mouth. He drank, and regretted it. Swallowing was _far_ more painful than it was worth.

Then—

"'We'?" he repeated, an uncomfortable squeak. There was only one of her in the room. Where were the other two?

"Captain's sleeping. We're taking shifts, and she got the short stick. As for Al…I don't know _where_ she is. She's been gone since this time yesterday."

He felt his eyes light up. Gone? _Gone_ gone? As in, really, really gone? Gone? Away? From him?

_This_ must_ be a dream. Or she's just saying it to make you feel better. Al wouldn't run out on a sick Squishykins._

_Unless she's dead._

He smiled, then frowned.

_I am _not_ Squishy._

"Squishy?" (She was just lucky he couldn't find the strength to wring her neck.) "Are you hungry?"

He tried to groan, and managed a noisy exhalation. Wasn't he swallowing _enough_ without trying to force _food_ down, too?

Apparently not.

"I'll make you some chicken noodle soup. Don't go anywhere."

She scampered off. He glared at her until she left his line of sight.

Then he turned all his attention to managing The Great Escape.

If he could just make it out of bed, everything would be downhill from there.

xXx

Humming quietly to herself, Techie puttered about the kitchen, making a big pot of mint tea to go with the soup. Something hot and soothing, now that his temperature was down, would be just the thing to put him in a better frame of mind.

His sudden turn for the better put her in such a good mood, she even made a little extra for the people in the basement. Test subjects or not, they had to eat.

When she returned to his room with her tray of steamy goodness, she found him fast asleep, sprawled across the bed with the covers thrown off and one foot on the floor. It had to be his most adorable escape attempt ever.

Techie set the tray down and maneuvered him back into the bed. His fever, which had diminished to almost normal proportions, was spiking again. So much for the hot tea. Poor baby.

_Yes, poor baby,_ she thought defiantly. _I can think it, and there's nothing you can do about it._

"It's a good thing you're never going to tell anyone about this," she muttered, wondering if she'd be able to rouse him enough to pour the soup down his throat. "If this kind of thing got out, both our reputations would be shot."


	5. Because it isn't really raining rain

It had been many a year since Al had been greeted at the front door with a rousing, "Where have you _been_, young lady? We were worried sick!" She blinked in surprise at Techie the Wrathful.

"About _me_?"

"No, about Jonathan! You stepped out to the pharmacy thirty-one hours ago! He needs medicine, and children's Robitussin isn't doing him much good."

"Okay, I'm sorry. It's just that I ran into some trouble." She kicked out at the bundle lying at her feet, eliciting a muffled groan. Techie blinked.

"Who's in the bag, Al?"

"I dunno. Some doctor."

"You do realize if he knows where we live, we can't let him run out of here alive when it's all over." Al shrugged.

"Better him than Squishy."

Dr. Harrison, who turned out to be an elderly pediatrician from Hoboken, was more than willing to help his kidnapper and her friends take care of their "Master Squish," whose true identity Dr. Harrison tried not to guess, for the sake of his own health. He was a very good doctor who would no more deny aid to a patient in need than he would cut off his own arm with a hacksaw.

However, he did have some regard for his own skin. So, after four days, when he judged the patient was out of the woods and he found himself momentarily unattended, Dr. Harrison made a well-timed retreat.

Soon afterwards, Boulder, Colorado gained a very good pediatrician. Dr. Harrison never returned to the east coast, and the security of the Scarecrow's lair remained intact.

Everything was fine. 


	6. It's raining violets

Jonathan woke. He felt terrible…yet, not nearly as bad as he had been. Things still hurt that had no business hurting, especially in his chest, which was fighting against him with every breath he tried to take. But at least his eyes weren't trying to play tricks on him anymore, and his mind felt clear for the first time in…how long?

His memories of the past few days were very muddled. He remembered the Captain, Al, and Techie, along with a variety of other people who could only have been hallucinations. His great-granny, his mother, even his father—none of whom had ever sat up by his bedside when he was sick, even in the less than comforting way he had envisioned over the course of his illness, and never would have even if they were still alive to do it. Those, he could almost understand. One was _supposed_ to reach out to family in time of need, whether they were likely to give comfort or not.

But why Batman? Why the Joker? Why the Arkham nurse who never wore a bra, Richard Nixon, and an assortment of random strangers? Granted, he hadn't imagined anyone but his three minions showing him any random acts of kindness, but the fact that he had conjured up any of those images, for any reason, was…irritating, to say the least.

At least he hadn't had Batman reading to him.

That thought brought home the fact that the room was blessedly dark and silent. So having those girls by his bedside at all hours—that had been just another delusion.

That was…an odd feeling. Not that he particularly wanted them anywhere near him, especially when he couldn't fight them off. But to think that his subconscious mind had given him some lamebrain fantasy about literary-minded caregivers, and then his self-appointed Best Friends Forever had _failed_ to measure up to his dreams…He didn't know why that bothered him. It couldn't be because they hadn't met his expectations. No, he was just irritated that he'd had expectations in the first place. It was all _their_ fault, of course. He had _known_ how things stood before they came along. Without them, he could have just…quietly died in peace.

All right, so the soup, at least, had been real. He wasn't the least bit hungry. Thirsty, though…a glass of water would make him almost obscenely happy, provided he could swallow it. His throat still felt raw enough to start bleeding at the first sign of any strenuous effort, but he was willing to give it a shot. Fumbling, he turned on the light.

And there was Techie, sound asleep in a chair with her head on the foot of his bed, crushing a paperback book under her face. He stared at her. She stubbornly refused to melt away.

On the bedside table—yes, they _had _added furniture to his room—were more books, and not the horror fare he would have expected. One was a paperback copy of _The Princess Bride_, in pristine condition in spite of yellowed pages that indicated it was older than it looked. And the other was a very familiar black binder that usually resided in his lab. Curious, he picked it up and flipped it to his last workday.

They had continued his research! Starting right where his own very precise script left off was a messy scrawl in violent purple detailing subject number three's adverse reaction to an increased dosage. He had to admit, he was pleasantly surprised that Techie had managed to follow his notes well enough to anticipate how he'd planned to continue the experiment.

The next session's notes were more legible, although some of the letters were oddly shaped, and written in a shade of emerald that wouldn't have looked out of place on the Riddler's walls. The Captain didn't seem to have much interest in chemistry. ("I gave him some of the white stuff" wasn't very useful to him at all.) But she had recorded every word of the patients' frantic babbling, with detailed notes regarding pitch, volume, emotional intensity, and every other variation he could have wanted. And the last line looked very promising indeed: "See home movies for more info."

The purple and green alternated for a few days until finally, with a splash of blood red, Al took over.

Her handwriting was so cramped and awkward he could barely make it out. But what he did read told him that when he took the time to work his way through her many pages' worth of entries, he was going to be in for quite a treat.

He hadn't been aware that she had any training in his field. If she turned out to have studied psychology, too, he might even be willing to let her assist in the lab.

Or maybe that was just the remnants of the fever talking. As soon as he got back to normal—whatever that was—he would go right back to banning them all from every aspect of his life.

In the meantime, he tried not to wake Techie when he stumbled out of bed. Not because she deserved a clearly needed rest, but because he didn't want to deal with her.

Standing made him dizzy, but with the wall for support, he wasn't going to lose it. He could make it to the kitchen, no sweat.

Well, _some_ sweat. But he wasn't going to call for help. He wasn't sure he could have, even if he'd wanted to.

A quick test of his voice proved that, while he no longer quite felt like he'd swallowed a piece of barbed wire and gotten it stuck halfway down, he wasn't going to be able to talk enough to get himself kicked out of a library for a while yet.

Well, what did it matter? He had nothing to say to anyone.

He stopped to rest in the middle of the hall. Should he be feeling so weak? How long had he been out? The wall felt so smooth and cool against his forehead…he couldn't think of anything nicer than falling asleep where he stood.

He very nearly did. Only the memory of why he had gotten up in the first place spurred him onward. Water…a cool drink…not even the promise of rest could compete with that.

Once in the common room, he caught sight of _them_—Al and the Captain lying on the couch—and froze, anticipating an outburst of, "Squishy, what are you doing out of bed?"

They didn't move. Oh—they were _asleep_, leaning against each other with the television playing softly in the background. They must have been exhausted to just pass out like that.

Well…too bad for them. They should have known better than to waste their time on him.

He came closer.

They didn't react to his presence in any way. They were really out of it. And, while he had seen the Captain once of twice napping—lightly—wherever she had fallen, he had never known Al to close her eyes anywhere but in her own room, with her door securely locked. "Secure" was a relative term, of course, but locking the door made her feel better. And she slept too soundly to trust anyone else when she was out in the open.

The Captain, on the other hand, should have woken up at the first sound of her footsteps, unless she had been staying up for twenty-four hours at a time again. How exhausted was she? What had they been doing?

It didn't look like they were going to be getting up any time soon. Those blankets they had wrapped around him were still lying on the floor…if he covered them up and stopped them from freezing to death, they would never let him hear the end of it, but he didn't feel like going to the trouble of disposing of the bodies, and he felt even less like putting it off and dealing with the smell. He dumped a blanket on top of the two of them, and happened to brush Al's forehead in the process.

Oh, _hell_.

She was burning up.

And not because she had accidentally set herself on fire this time.

He touched the Captain's face. She was just as hot as Al.

_Rephrase that. They're both running _fevers_. They've both spent too much time nursing a man with a contagious illness, and now they're sick Wonderful. I hope _I'm_ not expected to take care of these two._

…Two?

"Three," he whispered in horror. Techie's immune system couldn't be much better than her friends'. And if _she_ was down…well, that left no one _but_ him.

And three corpses could really stink the place up before he got around to moving them.

_Now, relax._ Maybe they weren't as bad off as he had been. Maybe a good night's sleep in their own beds would fix them up enough that they could take care of themselves.

He tried shaking the Captain awake to propel her toward her room. Without opening her eyes, she coughed pathetically, then squeaked when she tried to inhale.

That was not a good sign. He tried Al.

"Stop," she said hoarsely. "Gonna throw up."

He got out of her way and turned his attention back to the Captain.

"Captain, get up," he said. She rolled over, taking both herself and Al off the sofa. "Move." He nudged her with his foot.

"'Kay," she whispered, and crawled off in the general direction he had indicated, collapsing at the edge of the rug. He nudged Al.

"Garbage can," she said urgently. He looked around, found a plastic bag, and tossed it under her face. She held it, but didn't seem to need it as badly as she'd thought.

"Al," he said.

"Yarrg."

"Go to bed."

"Leave me alone."

Well, she couldn't make it easy for him, could she? He bent over (his head protested the strain of inversion) grabbed her by the wrists (the joints in his fingers protested the indignity of menial labor) and dragged her out of his way. (There was no part of him that didn't protest this stupid plan in one way or another.)

If the thing they were sleeping on hadn't been a sofabed, he would have left them to fend for themselves. There was no way he was dragging them all the way to their rooms if they couldn't get there themselves. But he could fold out the bed for them…if they got comfortable, maybe they would stay there and leave him alone.

He tossed the cushions aside and strained to lift the accursed thing out of its shell.

Was he really old enough to have a bad back? It seemed like just yesterday he was getting himself stuffed in lockers—actually, he had found himself inside a locker about three months ago, but that was hardly the same as going through it on a daily basis. And now here he was on the wrong side of forty, developing all those same aches and pains that had kept his granny in her chair with a glass of lemonade while he worked the fields.

It was almost enough to make a man nostalgic for his youth.

Then again—he wrestled the foldout bed into place—there might be a few benefits to age.

"Get up," he said again, and prepared to derive a little too much enjoyment from kicking the Captain.

"Okay, Daddy."

He stared at her.

_Daddy?!_

Strike that—age did _not_ have its benefits!

He glared daggers at her while she dragged herself up onto the mattress and collapsed again, showing no sign that she had any idea what she'd just called him.

_Daddy?_ Was _that_ how she thought of him? He was old enough for it, but…but he wasn't the type to procreate, and she knew it. He would make a worse father than…than…he couldn't even think of anyone to compare himself to!

If this was an accurate representation of her feelings for him…well, she was going to have to die, that was all.

Oh, and what about the _others_? He was going to have to take them all out in one fell swoop. He could lure them all down to the lab, lock them in a cage, gas them from a safe distance, and watch them batter themselves against the bars until their skulls cracked open and they collapsed.

Actually, maybe he should try that now, while they were incapacitated.

They were…weren't they?

"Al, get up," he said.

"Make me."

Well, she was belligerent enough, but was she physically capable of fighting back? He seized an arm and dragged her toward the bed.

_Oh, this is not happening._

She didn't fight him. In fact, she made things easier by following his directions and hardly leaning on him at all.

And she didn't say a word.

Crane glared down at the two of them. A lesser man might have chosen that instant for a momentary softening of his expression, maybe even a fond smile. Jonathan Crane couldn't afford that kind of weakness. He just dropped a blanket on top of them and stalked off to get the other one.

Tried, rather. The Captain's hand snaked out and caught his wrist, and she tried weakly to pull him back toward her.

"Don't go," she whispered pathetically. He stared at her. What did she mean, 'Don't go'?

He gave up on trying to keep his balance, and sat down next to her. She _cuddled_ with his hand. He snatched it away.

"What do you want?"

"Read to me."

"_Read_ to you?" Just how sick was she? Did he _look_ like Mr. Rogers? No. Not even if he put on a red sweater and smiled.

"And do the voices," she said. "Please?"

"No!"

He stood up. No way was he dealing with this. He would just get Techie, drag her out to join the others, and leave them alone while he got some more sleep, and maybe a hot shower. The peace and quiet would be delightful.

Out of curiosity, he stole a peek inside the Captain's backpack. She had a notebook filled with what appeared to be Arabic writing, and a single book by Dr. Seuss—_Green Eggs and Ham._

_Green Eggs and Ham_? She wanted him to read _Green Eggs and Ham_ to her?

Idiot.

Maybe later he would make some chicken soup. Forcing them to eat his cooking seemed an appropriate punishment for their insolence.

Yes. Soup.


End file.
